The Diary of Ma Yan: The Life of a Chinese Schoolgirl

"No more money for school this year. I till the land in order to pay for my brothers' schooling. When I think of the happy times at school, I can almost imagine myself there. How I want to study!"(Ma Yan, aged thirteen.)

This moving tale of a young girl with an indomitable spirit, wonderful humour and thirsty intelligence, was pressed into the hands of a foreign journalist - and changed Ma Yan's world.

"A few years ago in the remote village of Zhangjiashu in the Ningxia region of northern China, Ma Yan was distraught because her parents could not afford to keep her in school. Today she is the seventeen-year-old author of The Diary of Ma Yan which has appeared in seventeen languages. Thanks to its publication, her family is no longer poor, and 250 other Ningxia youngsters, mostly girls, now have scholarships to continue studying."(New York Times.)